Page 47

F reddie stood in the hallway outside his wife’s bedroom, his hands behind his back.

The door was firmly closed and had been since he’d arrived back from the ball yesterday evening.

He had even sunk so low as to try the door, but it had been locked against him and he was not a brute who would force his way into his wife’s room.

The fear he had experienced when he realised she was no longer in the ballroom last night…

he shook his head, remembering how his knees had weakened and his heart had crashed around his ribcage.

He’d thought someone had taken her from him, but when he’d spoken to a servant, they had informed him that his wife had left a message to say she had returned home, no explanation given.

He’d run back to Glanmore House, not bothering to wait for the carriage to be brought round because those few minutes it would have taken would have been a few too many.

He’d raced up the stairs, barely even stopping after he’d stumbled to his knees.

Anna, her maid, had met him at his wife’s door.

She’d told him that Emily was back but asleep.

She had also offered no explanation for Emily’s strange behaviour.

He’d waited until Anna had gone before knocking gently on their connecting doors.

He couldn’t believe that Emily was in there but not willing to have him sleep beside her.

They had not been parted since their wedding day .

There had been no reply.

He’d crawled into his own bed, the sheets cold beneath his skin.

Even though it was summer, he’d not been able to get warm, no matter how much he tossed and turned.

He must have slept because he’d dreamed of Miss Dunn and locked bedrooms, but by the time the house was stirring he had been lying on his back staring at the ceiling for hours.

She had not emerged from her room to collect Lotte and she had made no appearance at breakfast. He’d managed to choke down a few bites of toast, but from the sympathetic looks Edward and Christopher had shot him when they thought he wasn’t looking, he had not fooled anyone.

‘No joy?’ murmured Edward, coming to stand next to him; they both contemplated the shut door for a moment.

Freddie shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Have you tried knocking?’ Freddie whipped his gaze to Edward, who held up his hand. ‘There is no need to glare at me quite so fiercely. I am only trying to be helpful.’

‘Could you be helpful elsewhere?’

Edward sighed. ‘Come on. This is getting you nowhere.’ Edward slung his arm around Freddie’s shoulders and led him away from Emily’s bedroom door. Freddie glanced back several times but it remained closed.

‘You probably think I am being pathetic,’ he said as his brother guided him to the back of the house.

‘I would make some sort of jest here about you always being a sorry excuse for a human being, but it seems cruel to kick a man when he is down.’

They made their way to the Blue Lounge. Freddie had spent more time here in the last few months than at any previous time in his life. The extreme blueness was starting to grow on him, or maybe it was the recollection of what he and Emily had done on the settee.

‘It is a little early in the day for brandy,’ Freddie said as Edward poured them both generous measures.

‘You look like you need it.’

Freddie didn’t argue as he took the glass and swilled the amber liquid around. ‘I do not understand what is happening.’

‘Did you argue?’

‘No.’ Freddie had turned everything over in his mind during the endless night. He had done nothing wrong.

‘Could someone have said something to upset her at the ball?’

It was possible, but Freddie liked to think Emily would have come to find him if that were the case.

He’d hoped they were more than a married couple, that they had become friends.

Last night and this morning had proven they were not as close as he had begun to hope they were.

While he was desperately in love with her, she thought him someone who needed to be kept at arm’s length, someone she could not confide in when she needed to.

He was trying to be a man about it, trying to be stoic and keep a stiff upper lip, but it was very difficult when he wanted to cry.

Being a man was damned hard work sometimes.

‘I do not know if anyone spoke to her at the ball. I did not see her after we were announced as a family.’ He took a sip of his drink.

‘She should have told me she was leaving.’

‘Yes.’

‘I should not have had to find out after an hour of searching for her. I thought that something awful had happened.’ Edward nodded. ‘She is my wife.’

‘Not sure you needed to add that last part. You have made that very clear in the time we have been living together, somewhat nauseatingly, if you do not mind me saying. ’

Freddie ignored the last bit of that; who cared if he was obvious in his devotion to Emily?

Not him. He was past that, had been over that for weeks now.

He no longer cared if the whole world knew his feelings for Emily.

‘You know what I mean. This is a partnership. I treat her with respect and I would like the same courtesy in return. I do not deserve to be shut out or locked in.’

Edward froze, his glass halfway to his mouth. ‘None of us deserved to be locked in, Fred.’

Freddie’s breathing slowed. He hadn’t meant to say that last part, but it was true.

Neither he nor any of his brothers had ever done anything that warranted being locked away.

They had been children. Emily’s behaviour shouldn’t be bringing back memories of that time and yet somehow it was.

By taking herself away from him, she was isolating him in a different yet horribly familiar way.

‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that I am surprised by her behaviour. It is out of character.’ He remembered the fierce words she had used to defend him when he had told her about his aunt’s treatment of him. He very much doubted she would want to remind him of that with her own behaviour.

‘You will have to talk to her, Fred.’

Freddie nodded. ‘I know.’ He didn’t add that he had the strangest sense that if he did not do it soon, some part of their relationship would slip through his fingers and he might not ever be able to get it back.

‘Tobias has agreed that we should hire someone to investigate Sebastian’s death,’ Edward told him.

‘What?’ Freddie shook his head.

Edward grimaced. ‘I am sorry if this is not the right time to discuss it. I thought you might like the distraction, but I can see that now is not the time. ’

‘No, it is fine.’ Freddie took another slow sip of his drink, his mind only half on what Edward was saying despite the seriousness of the conversation. ‘Have you found someone suitable?’

‘I have found the perfect person, but he is stubbornly refusing to agree to my terms. You are the most personable of us brothers after all. Perhaps you would visit him with me and help me persuade him to take the case.’

‘Of course.’ It was a mark of how upset he was that he did not want to gloat over his brother’s unexpected compliment.

He went to take another sip of his brandy before stopping himself; now was not the time to get blindingly drunk, nor even a little.

‘I do not want to at this moment, however.’ He was not going anywhere until he had sorted everything out with Emily.

‘Of course not now. I get the impression part of the problem is that he hates the upper classes. It would not do my case any good if we turned up reeking of brandy.’

The door clicked open; Freddie bolted upright only to slump back down when he saw Christopher entering the room.

‘I do not think anyone has ever been less pleased to see me,’ commented his brother.

‘I doubt that,’ countered Edward.

‘Is it that sort of morning?’ asked Christopher, nodding towards their glasses.

‘It is,’ said Edward, although Freddie still had not taken another sip.

‘I admit that I am no expert on women,’ said Christopher, settling into a large wingback chair, ‘but I am going to take a wild guess and suggest that getting drunk is not going to help your cause.’

Freddie grunted in agreement.

‘Again, I’m no expert on women,’ said Christopher, ‘but I believe there are certain times of the month when they are less… um… rati onal.’ It was interesting that his brother should blush when referring to a woman’s monthly cycle, especially when there was no woman around to hear him.

Freddie would make fun of him, but he wasn’t in that sort of mood.

Besides, he didn’t think that was the problem.

‘I do not believe her behaviour can be attributed to that.’ He wasn’t an expert on that side of things either, but he knew Emily and he knew that…

he pushed himself upright. He counted back in his head.

He’d been married for six weeks now, and there hadn’t been a time when Emily had denied him.

There hadn’t been a day when they hadn’t enjoyed one another intimately.

Could that mean… or did that mean…? No. Surely, she would have said something unless…

she might be as clueless as him. It wasn’t as if either of them had been married before.

He stood. ‘I have to speak to her.’

‘Good man,’ said Edward, leaning back in his chair and crossing a leg over his knee. ‘I am glad I have been of help.’

‘You were useless.’ Freddie clapped Christopher on the shoulder as he passed. ‘However, I do thank you, Chris.’

‘Hey,’ Edward called out, but Freddie ignored him. It was time to get answers of his own.

When he reached Emily’s door it was finally open, but his optimism was short-lived. He peered into the room, but Emily had gone.